Sara Jayne Townsend's Blog, page 57

The Wrong Point of View

Cross-posted from the WriteClub blog.

The right point of view is essential to any novel, but it's easy to get confused. Do you go with first person – ie, the narrator tells the story? It means the reader can get inside the head of the MC, but the writer is limited to the MC's experiences. Third person POV gives you the option of telling the story from the POV of more than one character.

However, a lot of writers seem to commit the cardinal sin of "head hopping" when operating in third-person POV, and this is not limited to inexperienced writers. I've picked up many published novels – released by otherwise reputable publishers – that also commit this sin. As well as making me throw the book across the room, I wonder about the editors that this publishing house has employed when this happens.

Let's just clarify what I mean by "Head-hopping", just so we all know what we're talking about. Take the following paragraph:

"Mary sensed John's gaze on her as she entered the room, and it made her uncomfortable. John wondered if Mary had forgiven him yet for last night."

The first sentence establishes we're in Mary's POV. But in the second sentence we jump to John's POV – how does Mary know what John is thinking?

This is just a bad example from the top of my head, but I have actually read published novels that are almost as bad as this. There's nothing wrong with multiple POV characters, but there should be a clear break before switching from one character POV to another.

I think part of the problem with POV shifts is a lack of understanding of how they work. Being in third person POV does not mean that you can be in every character's head simultaneously, but I think some writers – and editors – suffer from this basic misapprehension.

I lay the blame for this partly on the fact that the education system does not teach people how to write correctly. I remember being taught POV in my English lessons at high school. What I was taught was: first person means the narrator is telling the story directly, and so the pronoun "I" is used. Third person is when the narrator is outside the story, looking in, and the pronoun "he" or "she" is used. Second person is when the story is told by someone who is not the main character, such as Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

I remember this lesson very clearly, and I knew at the time it was wrong. The Sherlock Holmes stories are written from a first person POV – Watson's. Second person is when the story is told from the point of view of someone directing the main character, and the pronoun "you" is used. It's pretty unusual to find a novel told in second person, but it was used for all the "choose your own adventure" books I used to love reading as a kid.

"Head-hopping" is an easy mistake to make – there were a couple of examples of it in early drafts of SUFFER THE CHILDREN. Fortunately for me, my editor picked up the ones that had slipped through my own editing process and berated me for it.

But other publishers do not seem to have such diligent editors, and I get tired of reading published novels that would not pass one of my writing group's critique sessions.

It emphasises my belief that one does not learn how to write at any educational centre. The only way to learn how to write is through the experience of writing.

Sadly, some editors need to go through the same process. Perhaps there should be an 'editor school'. POV should be one of the first lessons.

"Behind the Scenes" Blog Spot

I am this week the featured author on the "Behind the Scenes" blog spot at Novelspot.net.

Each week features a different writer in a series of blog posts over seven days. This week is my turn. The post for today, entitled "The Beginning", can be found here.

There will be a new post every day this week, so why not check back later to follow the series?

Writing Processes – Part 13: How Life Changed

I keep saying that life changed when the publishing contract arrived. And it wasn't just in the obvious ways. It was a lot of little ways, too.

But, let's start with the most obvious. Before signing the contract, I felt quite often I was just playing at being a writer. Occasionally I would have daft conversations with non-writers. This would normally be people I met at social events, trying to make polite conversation. Upon finding out I am a writer, they would ask, "so where can I buy your books, then?". I would then explain that they can't, because none of them have actually been published yet.

The person would then give me that withering, disbelieving look – the one that says, "how can you say you're a writer, then, if you've not had anything published?" Generally the person would be too polite to say this straight out, but would go and find someone else to talk to rather quickly.

But then, all of a sudden I had a book out. Now when people ask me that question I give them one of my cards and tell them, "you can buy the book direct from Lyrical's website. Here's the link."

Being offered a contract is a fantastic confidence boost for a writer. Here you have evidence that you can write, after all, and what you are writing is publishable. After the initial euphoria wears off, however, you then start to worry that you have to come up with a second book before people forget who you are. No more taking 10 years to write a book. The second, and the third, and the fourth, have to appear at regular intervals.

So there is a need for discipline. Making time to write became important, even if that meant crawling out of bed at 5:30am to get some writing in before work. It was no longer enough to wait for the Muse to be inspired. The Muse was obliged to get to work when I required her to, instead of sitting about on her lazy backside for months at a time.

As well as finding time to get on with the next book, I also had to make time to promote the one that had just come out. I perused my online writing forums for any sign of anyone who might be interested in reviewing horror novels. Every time I found someone expressing an interest in featuring writer interviews or guest blog posts on their website, I volunteered. My own blog became a marketing tool, rather than just a series of random ramblings. I post a lot more about writing and publicity now, and less about ordinary life which is the way I started out.

One very small but significant thing that changed is the way I read my writing magazines. I subscribe to several. I still subscribe, but before the contract I used to peruse each one carefully, pen in hand, and highlight any article regarding an independent press or an agent actively seeking submissions of crime and horror. For a while after the contract was signed and sealed I caught myself doing this, before remembering (with just that small thrill) that I didn't need to be looking for places to submit any more – I had a publisher.

And finally I have learned to never, ever, go anywhere without my promotional business cards. You just never know when you might meet a potential punter. Now, if the conversation happens to turn around to writing, and the person I'm talking to appears to show genuine interest in the fact I've written a book, I can give them the card and point them towards the link. I even take my cards on holiday with me, though admittedly I've never had cause to give them out to anyone. I have given them to friends of friends I've met at social events. I've given plenty out at conventions. I've left piles of them in Starbucks. I've even given them to a few of the doctors at work (should they express interest in the SUFFER THE CHILDREN postcard I have stuck on my notice board).

I guess I have to admit to becoming a publicity tart. That's another thing that's come about since the contract arrived.

And that's a subject for a future post, perhaps.

Tea With Toad

I've been chatting to Toad, of Toad Corner, this week, about attending Cons. Take a look at the interview here.

"Toad's Corner" is administered by Nerine Dorman, and she's always on the look-out for genre writers, willing to chat about their stories or their craft, so drop her a line if you'd like to take tea with Toad!

Another Review for SUFFER THE CHILDREN

I am thrilled to be able to announce that SUFFER THE CHILDREN has been reviewed on the "Bitten By Books" paranormal review site. Not only it is a favourable review, it's earned a "4-tombstone" rating.

Exciting news!

This review is hot off the press – so hot, in fact, I wouldn't have known it was there had sharp-eyed Sonya Clark not noticed it and sent me the link – so a big thank you to Sonya!

See the full review here.

Slowly, but surely, STC is starting to make a splash. It's all good.

E-books and Obstacles

(Cross-posted from the WriteClub blog)



Since acquiring my e-reader, I have been buying e-books. And I have encountered two intensely annoying problems that are preventing me from buying all the e-books I would like.

First of all, each e-reader uses different software, and not all e-books are available in all formats. If an e-book I want to buy is only available on the Kindle, I won't be able to read it on my Sony e-reader. This I find rather irritating. It's like buying a film on DVD and discovering that this DVD won't run on your Toshiba DVD player – you have to have a Sony.

The other problem is the whole DRM issue (otherwise known as digital rights management). I've heard several arguments for DRM now, but I am yet to be convinced it's a good idea. In practice, what it means is that if I am at my computer in the UK, and I find an e-book I want to buy that's only available on a US e-book site, I can't buy it.

This seems, to me, to be completely daft. As I have family in Canada, hubby and I frequently visit there. We love browsing in Toronto's wonderful book stores, and we will invariably find books that we want to buy when we browse – generally things that aren't in print or available yet in the UK, or sometimes just because this is the sequel to the book one of us finished reading on the plane on the way over. So we'll buy the books, we'll put them in our suitcase and we'll bring them back to the UK. We're not doing anything illegal. We are legitimately buying the books; we are contributing to the Canadian economy; and we are putting money in the pockets of the writers. And we will enjoy the books. Even if I buy a print book from the US Amazon site it's not a problem – Amazon will happily ship the book to me in the UK – I just pay a bit more for postage.

Yet, if I try to buy an e-book from the US, I can't. I have discovered there are a number of e-books I can't buy, either because they are only available on US e-book sites or they are only available on Kindle. And it's really starting to bug me. Here I am ready to embrace this new electronic technology, and I find obstacles in my way. Have publishers not yet figured out that if the books people want to read are freely available to all as e-books, there's less of chance they will be pirated?

I will take a moment to praise my publisher, Lyrical Press, here because neither of these problems exist with their e-books. There are no digital rights restrictions on e-books purchased direct from Lyrical's site, so you can buy them from anywhere in the world (and I've had people in Canada, US and the UK buying my e-book), and each e-book is available in six different formats, so you can load it onto whichever e-reader you wish.

Yay for Lyrical. Now we just have to get the rest of the publishing world to follow in their trailblazing footsteps.

Walking To Work

It's a grey, cold, wet Autumn Monday. And there is a tube strike today. Not a good way to start the week.

My contingency plan for tube strike days (and this is the second in a series of four planned strikes over the next few weeks) is to leave the house really early, so if I have to walk to work from Victoria Station, I have sufficient time to do so. I was on the train this morning at 6:40 – the same train I catch when I come in early for my writing mornings.

I did go searching for a bus at Victoria Station, but there were already horrendous queues for all buses, even at 7:10 am. I can make the walk in 45 minutes, and I had left the house prepared to have to walk, so off I set.

My route takes me down Buckingham Palace Road and past the Palace (the Queen was not at home, it seems), and through Green Park. Emerging from Green Park I hang a right at Piccadilly, go past the Ritz Hotel and then turn left down Old Bond Street, which eventually becomes New Bond Street.

Bond Street is full of swanky designer shops. None of the items in the artistically arranged window displays have price tags – I guess if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. Even walking past these shops makes me feel like a bag lady. Fortunately for me, at 7:30 am none of the shops are open, so there are no supermodel-lookalike shop assistants to glare at me for bringing down the tone by walking past their doorstep in my hiking pants, back pack and walking shoes.

At the end of New Bond Street I turn right into Oxford Street and I am back into familiar territory.

I may have had to crawl out of bed at an ungodly hour to get to work this morning, but at least the rain held off for my walk, and I started the day with some exercise. I do rather hope I can find a bus back to the station tonight, though. One 45-minute walk in a day is plenty for me.

There And Back Again

The 'gap year' is a relatively new idea, it seems. Twenty years ago it was far less common for young people to take a year out between school and university to go and travel round the world. Nowadays, it seems most students are at it.

But an even more recent development is that the gap year is apparently no longer restricted to students. It's becoming more common for people in their 30s and 40s and well established in their careers to jack in their jobs and take off around the world for a year or two. I think part of this might be a symptom of the recession most of the world has been stuck in for the last little while. When we went on our Tanzania trip last year, most of our travelling companions were on a much longer trip than the two-week stint we did. A significant proportion of them were people around our age, who had been made redundant and decided to travel instead of looking for another job. Most of this group were single and had been renting, which probably makes it easier to just drop everything and go travelling, but there was at least one person who had sold her property to raise enough finances to travel indefinitely.

In the last 18 months, two of my colleagues have resigned from their jobs in order to go travelling for several months, and some friends of ours recently took a three-month sabbatical from work to travel.

I have to say I am full of admiration for people who take this brave step into the unknown. Twenty years ago I had neither the money nor the confidence to go travelling around the world. Now, at forty, I possess a bit more of both, but my preferred method of travel is still to go someplace for two weeks and then come back again. I don't think I would want to go off for six months, even if the opportunity to do so arose. The uncertainty of spending money and not having a job to come back to would be far too stressful. I would also worry constantly about whether my house had been burgled in my absence, or if my cats were OK. Not to mention the fact that an extended period of eating non-Western food and using non-Western toilets would play havoc with my decidedly temperamental digestive system.

I would like to say that extended travel is a young person's game but I can't, really, because I've met plenty of people my age or older who have taken off round the world for months at a time. So I think maybe it's just not something that would suit me. I have commitments. I like routine. And I am actually quite happy with this state of affairs.

Don't get me wrong – I have no objection to getting on a plane for 14 hours to go to some far-flung exotic destination, spending a week or so in an alien place, tentatively trying their food and doing my best to experience other cultures. But then when the week ends I'm glad to come home, back to my indoor plumbing and soft toilet paper; back to Marmite sandwiches and Dairy Milk chocolate bars.

I'm not denying I love travelling. But only in short bursts. Perhaps I'm not very adventurous after all, but part of the fun, for me, in going there is coming back again.

Why Vampires Make Bad Boyfriends

(Crossed-posted from the WriteClub blog)

Writers of any genre involving paranormal creatures are united in their fondness for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". And sooner or later, amongst Buffy fans (at least the female ones), the question invariably arises: which of Buffy's boyfriends is best?

Fans of Spike and Angel seem fairly evenly divided. I, however, have always gone for Riley. Yes, I know, he's usually considered boring. I rather like 'boring'. Riley was solid, dependable, reliable, trustworthy (well most of the time, anyway). And he had a healthy respect for independent-minded women. And, most importantly, he was human.

I do understand what the whole 'sexy vampire' thing is all about. Vampires are the ultimate Bad Boys, and a lot of women are attracted to bad boys. For some reason, I never have been. The only 'bad boy' I ever had a thing for was Han Solo, and when I wrote my Star Wars fan fiction, at age 14, the alter ego I created to put myself in the Star Wars universe was Han Solo's half sister – even at that age, I had worked out that dating someone like him would lead to trouble.

But let's look at why vampires make bad boyfriends. First of all, there's the whole 'immortality' thing. If you want someone to grow old with, don't choose a vampire because they don't. He's still going to be looking young and sexy when you're old and wrinkly and drawing your pension.

Then there's the issue of not being able to go out in sunlight. You won't be able to go on beach holidays with your beloved. Or for picnics in the park. Or anywhere, in fact, that requires going out in daylight. That's going to be problematic in any relationship.

Another thing that occurs to me is that actually, it shouldn't technically be possible for a vampire – a male one, anyway – to have sex. Vampires don't have heart beats, and without a beating heart the blood does not flow through the body, and…well, let's just point out that blood flow is a key factor in being able to have sex, at least for men. But OK, vampires aren't real, we are talking fantasy, and the act of sucking blood has been equated with sex since Bram Stoker wrote "Dracula". So I am prepared to suspend my belief for this one, at least.

But ultimately, human/vampire relationships are doomed to failure, and even Buffy realised this in the end – it's why she accepted her relationship with Angel was over.

Maybe I'm far too sensible for my own good, and that's why I've never gone for the 'bad boy' idea. But I'm happy to let all the other Buffy girls fight over Angel and Spike. I'll take Riley. I prefer 'boring and dependable' over 'exciting and dangerous' even when it comes to fantasy men.

I accept I'm in the minority here. Maybe I'm just weird. I'll take a geek over a bad boy any day. In the long term, they'll cause less heartache.

Zombies in 3D

Over the weekend, hubby and I went to see "Resident Evil After Life" in 3D. It's been a long time since we went to the cinema, and in checking the listings I was rather surprised by the number of films currently showing in 3D. Perhaps the movie industry feels the need to offer something different these days to attract people into movie theatres – after all, when you can have a 50″ flat screen TV with surround sound and HD movie channels in your living room, and the comfort of your own...